The invention relates to a micro- or nanostructure, from a die to a flat side of a large-area substrate with a substrate holder that receives the substrate on a substrate receiving surface, and an actuator device that can be oriented parallel to the substrate receiving surface and opposite to this movable structural surface of the die and that acts orthogonally to the substrate receiving surface.
The structuring of substrates, for example wafers, is done by embossing or stamping, whereby the procedure is to operate either with a die, whose die structural surface corresponds to the size of the surface to be structured on the substrate, or smaller dies are used, which introduce to the substrate a repeating structure in several steps in the so-called step-and-repeat process. While large dies are expensive and difficult to produce, the die process lasts considerably longer in the case of very small dies based on orientation that has to be done multiple times and the many intermediate steps. Moreover, large dies, in particular in the nanometer range, can be used only in the case of very flat substrates. In the step-and-repeat process, the additional problem is that in particular in round substrates and square dies, specific areas of the substrate are not picked up by the die and corresponding scrapping is produced. The more completely the available substrate surface can be structured, the higher is the edge yield, also named Edge Die Yield.
An optimum edge yield would be achieved by reducing the die size to chip dimensions, i.e., a self-enclosed structure. Typical chip sizes are, for example, 100 μm×100 μm up to 80 mm×80 mm. When using such small dies, the throughput would drop and thus the production costs of chips would increase considerably.
Dies with an asymmetrical die structure, also called an asymmetrical filling factor, cause the largest problem, since the die can tilt and/or drift during embossing of the substrate, and an uneven structuring, in the worst case leading to scrapping, is the result.